Wednesday

May 9, 2018 at 7:30 PMMay 10, 2018 at 11:10 PM

Rep. Tom MacArthur’s Fairness for Korean DMZ Veterans Act was added to the Blue Water Navy Vietnam Veterans Act on Tuesday prior to the committee’s vote to send the amended measure to the full House for consideration.

Federal lawmakers took a big step this week toward compensating more veterans who may have been exposed to Agent Orange during their service.

Legislation penned by Rep. Tom MacArthur, R-3rd of Toms River, to expand the time period that veterans who served at or near the Korean demilitarized zone in the late 1960s can qualify for disability benefits related to herbicide-related illnesses or conditions was added to another Agent Orange-related measure that was advanced from the House Veterans Affairs Committee.

MacArthur’s Fairness for Korean DMZ Veterans Act was added to the Blue Water Navy Vietnam Veterans Act on Tuesday prior to the committee’s vote to send the amended measure to the full House for consideration.

About 90,000 so-called “Blue Water Navy” veterans served aboard aircraft carriers, cruisers, destroyers and other ships during the Vietnam War and were potentially exposed to Agent Orange.

For years Navy veterans from that conflict have fought to qualify for disability benefits related to possible exposure to the dioxin-laden herbicide, which has been found to cause respiratory cancers, Parkinson’s disease and heart disease, as well as other conditions.

So have Korean veterans who served close to the DMZ in the late 1960s.

Currently, Korean War veterans who served between April 1, 1968, and Aug. 3, 1971, are eligible for Agent Orange benefits. MacArthur’s bill changes the eligibility date to Sept. 1, 1967, for those veterans who served at or near the demilitarized zone.

MacArthur, whose late father was a Korean War veteran, described the inclusion of his bill’s language in the expanded Blue Water Navy Veteran Act as a key step in getting the change signed into law, as the latter bill has more than 300 co-sponsors.

“This is a major step in righting a wrong that far too many veterans have lived with for too long,” said MacArthur, who introduced his measure last year after meeting with Garfield Harper Jr., a Westampton veteran who served at the Korean DMZ in 1967.

Harper said he learned of the bill’s advance on Tuesday from his friend and fellow Korean vet, Eugene J. Clarke, of Reading, Connecticut.

“Gene saw it first and told me. It brought tears to my eyes,” Harper said Wednesday. “This is a great step. I was always hoping this would happen but I was shocked when it did.”

He said combining the two Agent Orange-related bills made sense and would help pave the way for more veterans to receive the benefits and health care they deserve.

“This is something great, but it’s really something that should have happened a long time ago,” Harper said. “The government didn’t want to hear about Agent Orange on the DMZ, just like they didn’t want to hear about Navy guys and those in Thailand also. There’s guys I know in the Air Force who were in Thailand during Vietnam, and they would come back in planes shot up with bullet holes and Agent Orange residue all over it.”

In addition to expanding the eligibility for Agent Orange benefits, the bill includes a fee increase for veterans and service members who use the VA’s home loan program to pay for the benefits expansion.

The legislation was one of several bills that were advanced by the Veterans Affairs Committee on Tuesday, including the VA Mission Act of 2018, which would consolidate the VA’s existing community care programs and extend funding for the VA Choice Program, which allows veterans to receive health care outside the VA system at the government’s expense.

The bill also would expand caregiver stipends for those who care for veterans.

MacArthur said he was grateful for the Veterans Affairs Committee’s decision to package his bill with the other veterans measures and that he would work to build support for them in the full House.

“Our district is home to over 50,000 veterans and I believe we have an absolute obligation to provide quality care for them,” he said. “They have sacrificed so much for our freedoms and now it’s up to us to fight for them.”

Harper said MacArthur deserves credit for introducing the bill and fighting for its advancement.

“(MacArthur) pursued this and kept after it," he said. "We were on him like junk yard dogs but he jumped on this and didn’t quit."

The House bill was co-sponsored by Reps. Donald Norcross, D-1st of Camden; Leonard Lance, R-7th of Clinton; and Bill Pascrell, D-9th of Paterson.

A Senate version of the DMZ bill was introduced in the Senate by Kansas Republican Jerry Moran. It is co-sponsored by New Jersey Sens. Cory Booker and Bob Menendez.

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